SONGS TO 

CALE 

YOUNG 

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CJCSFERIGHT DEPOSIC 



SONGS TO A. H. R. 



SONGS TO A. H. R. 

BY GALE YOUNG RIGE 




PUBLISHED BY THE CENTURY CO. 
NEW YORK MCMXVIII 



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Copyright, 1918, by 
The Century Co. 



Published, September, 1918 



-SEP 30 i9i8 

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TO 
A. H. R. 

Amid what joys and sorrows, upon what 
lands and seas, these songs have sprung to 
my heart, you alone know. If they have 
made our homeways seem fair as the far 
places of earth, and the far places as fair 
as home, they will have done that which I 
most desired. Gathered here together for 
the first time I offer them to you again. 



CONTENTS 

PAGB 

The World's and Mine 3 

Mating 4 

Untold 5 

Fides Perennis Amoris 6 

sufficings 9 

When the Wind is Low .... 10 

Romance 12 

In the Hurricane 14 

At Amalfi 16 

How Many Ways 18 

Monitions 19 

Shelter 20 

Free 22 

Recompense 23 

Star- Wanderings 24 

All 26 

Love and Infinity 27 

Via Amorosa 28 

In the Night 30 

Love-Watch 31 



CONTENTS 

PAOB 

Together 32 

Swallows '33 

Transfusion 35 

In a Dark Hour 36 

The Old Need 37 

Dominions 38 

Secrecies 39 

Twilight Content ...... 40 

On the Beach 42 

At the Ebb-Hour 43 

The Edge of the Hill 44 

MiNGLINGS 46 

The Heart's Question 47 

Assuagement 49 

First and Last 50 



SONGS TO A. H. R. 



THE WORLD'S AND MINE 

THE world may hear 
The wind in his trees, 
The lark in her skies, 
The sea on his leas; 
May hear Song rise 
So glad in its ringing 
That every star 
God has seems singing. 

But I have a music they never can know — 
The touch and soul and heart of you — Oh ! 
All else that is said or sung 's but a part of 
you — 

Be it forever so! 



MATING 

'T^ HE bliss of the wind in the redbud ring- 
J- ing! 

What shall we do with the April days? 
Kingcups soon will be up and swinging! 

What shall we do with May's? 

The cardinal flings, " They are made for 
mating! " 

Out on the bough he flutters, a flame. 
Thrush-flutes echo, " For mating's elating ! 

Love is its other name! " 

They know! know it! but better, oh better, 
Dearest, than ever a bird in Spring, 

Know we to make each moment debtor 
Unto love's burgeoning! 



UNTOLD 

COULD I, a poet, 
Implant the truth of you, 
Seize it and sow it 
As Spring on the world, 
There were no need 
To fling, forsooth, of you, 
Fancies that only lovers heed! 
For, but unfurled, 
The bloom, the sweet of you, 
(As unto me they are opened oft) 
Would with their beauty's breath repeat of 

you 
All that my heart breathes, loud or soft! 



FIDES PERENNIS AMORIS 

THO God should send me, 
When I die. 
To the last star 
Across His sky. 
And bid all space between us be 
Oblivion — one traverseless sea : 

Tho He should give me, 

There, a task, 
Sweeter than any 
I could ask, 
And, with the task, achievement, too. 
Greater than all I here shall do: 

Yea, tho He purposed 

Thus to let 
Me, severed from you, 
6 



FIDES PERENNIS AMORIS 

All forget; 
Remembrance like a magnet still 
Would draw my heart to you and will. 

So I should wander 

On the marge 
Of that new world 

With strangeness large, 
Leaving my task to turn a face 
Somehow toward your dwelling place. 

And I should listen 

Thro the stars 
To silent hintings 
Of lost bars 
Of music that was once your voice: 
In no dream should I more rejoice. 

Or I should tremble 

When the breeze 
Brought to my cheek 

Infinities 

7 



FIDES PERENNIS AMORIS 

Of dim forgotten touches love 

Once swept me with, like a wild dove. 

Nor could the presence 

Of His throng 
Of noblest spirits 
Hush, for long, 
In me the unrememhered bliss- — 
The vanished spell of days like this. 

For in the trysting 

Of true souls 
There is no distance 
That controls: 
Nor space nor God can keep them twain 
Only annihilation's reign. 



SUFFICINGS 

DAY for the mind, 
But night for the soul. 
Sun for delight, 
But moon to console. 
Song for the glad, 
But silence for rest. 
God for the world — 
But you for my breast! 



WHEN THE WIND IS LOW 

WHEN the wind is low, and the sea is 
soft. 
And the far heat-lightning plays 
On the rim of the West where dark clouds 
nest 
On a darker bank of haze; 
When I lean at the rail with you that I love 

And gaze to my heart's content; 
I know the heavens are there above — 
But you are my firmament. 

When the phosphor-stars are thrown from the 
bow 
And the watch climbs up the shroud; 
When the dim mast dips as the vessel slips 
Thro the foam that seethes aloud; 
10 



WHEN THE WIND IS LOW 

I know that the years of our life are few, 

And fain as a bird to flee, 
That time is as brief as a drop of dew — 

But you are eternity. 



11 



ROMANCE 

(North Cliff, Lynton, Devon) 

WHITE-CAPS hurry to meet the shore, 
A hundred fathoms down. 
Gray sails shimmer upon the wind 
Far out from Lynmouth town. 



High crags whisper above us, keen; 
The heather and the ling 
Laugh to the sky as driven by 
The wild gulls cry or cling. 

And, where the far sun like a god 
Scatters the mist, lies shore. 
Is it Romance's magic realm 
Spring reigns thro, evermore? 

12 



ROMANCE 

And that our morning hearts could see 
Across the darkest foam? 
Then do we know it well, my love, 
Because it is our Home. 



13 



IN THE HURRICANE 

WHO stood upon that schooner's driven 
deck 
Last night as reefed and shuddering she hove 
Into the twilight and all desperate drove 
From wave to angrier wave that sought her 
wreck? 

Who labored at her helm and watched the 

wind 
Stagger the sea with all his stunning might, 
Until in dimness dwindling from our sight 
She vanished in the rack that rode behind? 

We know not, you and I, but our two souls 
That followed as storm-petrels over the 
waves 

14 



IN THE HURRICANE 

Felt all the might of Him who sinks or saves, 
And all the pity of earth's unreached goals: 

Felt all — then swift returning to our love 
Dwelt in its peace, uplifted safe above. 



15 



AT AMALFI 

COME to the window, you who are mine, 
Waken! the night is calling. 
Sit by me here, with the moon's fair shine 
Into your deep eyes falling. 

The sea afar is a fearful gloom; 

Lean from the casement, listen! 
It breaks, anear, with a faery spume. 

Spraying the rocks that glisten. 

The little white town below lies deep 

As eternity in slumber. 
O, you who are mine, how a glance can reap 

Beauties beyond all number! 



16 



AT AMALFI 

And how, as sails that at anchor ride. 

Our spirits rock together 
On a love-sea — lit as this tide 

With tenderest star-weather! 

On a love-sea — till the dawn 's up, 

Over the moon low-lying; 
Till we have drunk, soul-deep, the cup 

Of a delight undying! 



17 



HOW MANY WAYS 

HOW many ways the Infinite has 
Tonight, in earth and sky: 
A falling star, a rustling leaf, 
The night-wind ebbing by. 
How many ways the Infinite has: 

A fire-fly over the lea, 
A whippoorwill in the wooded hill, 
And your dear love to me. 

How many ways the Infinite has: 

The moon out of the East; 
A cloud that waits her shepherding, 

To wander silver-fleeced. 
How many ways the Infinite has: 

A home-light in the West, 
And joy deep-glowing in your eyes, 

Wherein is all my rest. 
18 



MONITIONS 

SAD as an inland gull, far from the salt 
wave winging, 
Lost or lured from the sea — from all its 

heart has known, 
Am I, when I think that death, somewhere, 

may now be bringing 
The hour, my love, to sever us, and send each 
wandering lone. 



19 



SHELTER 

I HAVE been out where the winds are, 
And tossing tops of trees, 
And clouds that sweep from rim to rim 
Of blue infinities. 
And all was a sound and sway there, a surg- 
ing of unrest: 
So now I am wanting silence, and the heart I 
love best. 

Yes, and a quiet book, too, 

Of pensive poetry. 
In which to let the lines lapse 
Away, unlessonedly. 
For I shall gather, somehow, from the soft 

fire's glow, 
And from the eyes I love best, all I need to 
know. 

20 



SHELTER 

And hours shall slip to embers. 

And on the hearth lie; 
And every wind that blew me, 
And every want, die. 
Then I shall take the hand I love best, and 

turn to sleep: 
And, if God wills, at dawn wake, again, to 
laugh or weep. 



21 



FREE 

OWERE your heart not wide, dear. 
And were your soul not high, 
And were not both so deep, too, 

Deep as the April sky, 
I should not find love freedom, 

But know a need to range 
All heaven and hell — a prisoner 
Pining for space and change. 

But since there's depth within you 

To hang my moon and stars, 
Since I have not to beat vain wings 

Against offending bars, 
I find all other spaces 

That lie beyond our love 
Are prison — all alluring worlds 

Below me or above. 
22 



RECOMPENSE 

NOT if I chose from a world of days 
Could I find a day like this. 
The sky is a wreath of azure haze 

And the sea an azure bliss. 
The surf runs racing the young salt wind, 

Shouting without a fear 
At reef and bar, at cliff and scaur, 
Where you and I lie near. 

you and I who have watched the sky 

And sea from many a shore ! 
You, love, and I, who will live and die — 

And watch the sea no more! 
O joy of the world! joy of love, 

Joy that can say to death, 
" Tho you end all with your wanton pall. 

We two have had this breath! " 
23 



STAR-WANDERINGS 

LAST night I took you wandering 
Down silent paths between the stars, 
The sod of space beneath our feet 

Was soft as violet dreams. 
And close to many a moon that shone 
We wandered easeful ly alone, 
And everything to us was known, 

And everything was sweet: 
For all the world was as it seems 

When love is made complete. 

We wandered, oh, we wandered on. 
Thro dimmer-shining ways, till space 
In all its primal pureness lay, 

A starless reach beyond. 
And into it we passed to see 
If God in such a void could be — 
24 



STAR-WANDERINGS 

And still the soul of it was He, 

As of the starry way. 
Then, ah. Time touched us with his wand, 

And all was yesterday. 



25 



ALL 

ALL of Spring in a bird's song, 
Of Summer in a rose, 
Of Autumn in one fallen leaf: 
So the world goes. 

So forever it goes, dear, 
And so within one breast 

I find my all of earth -joy, 
And ease for unrest. 



26 



A 



LOVE AND INFINITY 

CROSS the kindling twilit moon 
A late gull wings to rest. 
The sea is murmuring underneath 

Its vast eternal quest. 
The coast-light flashes over the tide 

A red and warning eye; 
And oh, the world is very wide, 
But you are nigh! 

The stars come out from zone to zone, 

The wind knows every one, 
And blows their message to my heart 

As it has ever done. 
" They are all God's," it tells me, " all. 

However huge or high." 
But ah, I could not trust its call — 

Were you not by! 
27 



VIA AMOROSA 

WHEN we two walk, my love, on the 
path 
The moon makes over the sea, 
To the end of the world where sorrow hath 

An end that is ecstasy, 
Should we not think of the other road 

Of wearying dust and stone 
Our feet would fare did each but care 
To follow the way alone? 

When we two slip at night to the skies 

And find one star we keep 
As a trysting-place to which our eyes 

May lead our souls ere sleep, 
Should we not pause for a little space 

And think how many must sigh 

28 



VIA AMOROSA 

Because they gaze over starry ways 
With no heart-comrade by? 

When we two then lie down to our dreams 

That deepen still the delight 
Of our wandering where stars and streams 

Stray in immortal light, 
Should we not grieve with the myriads 

From East of earth to West 
Who lay them down at night but to drown 

A longing for some loved breast? 

Ah yes, for life has a thousand gifts, 

But love it is gives life. 
Who walks thro his world alone e'er lifts 

A soul that is sorrow-rife. 
But they to whom it is given to tread 

The moon-path and not sink 
Can ever say the unhappiest way 

Earth has is fair to the brink. 



29 



IN THE NIGHT 

% VTHEN I lie unsleeping, 

» V When the darkness seems 
Like a lonely sepulchre 

Where I'm shut in dreams, 
I have but to touch you, 

Reaching thro the night. 
Then does all the vast tomb change 

Into living light. 

Then does space unbounded 

Fill once more with stars, 
While my worn and haunted heart 

Ceases from old wars. 
Then does rest come to me, 

And, it may be, sleep: 
Such infinitude has love — 

Such watch can it keep. 
30 



LOVE-WATCH 



MY love 's a guardian-angel 
Who camps about your heart, 
Never to flee your enemy, 
Nor from you turn apart. 



Whatever dark may shroud you. 
And hide your stars away, 

With vigil sweet his wings shall beat 
About you till the day. 



31 



TOGETHER 

AROUND us is the sea's dance, 
And the glad, swinging flight 
Of wild windy gulls whose joy 
Is never to alight! 

Above us is the June sun, 

And higher still the Blue — 

And God, like a dream, dear. 
The whole world through! 



32 



SWALLOWS 

IN a room that we love, 
Under a lamp, 
Whose soft glow falls around, 
We sit each night and you read to me, 
Thro the silence soul-profound. 
And black on the yellow frieze of the walls 
The swallows fly unchanging; 
Round, round, yet never round, 
Ranging, — yet never ranging. 

We sit and you read, your face aglow, 

While amid dreams that start 

I watch the swallows 

As each follows 

The other, swift, apart. 

Till oft it seems that your words are birds, 

33 



SWALLOWS 

Flying into my heart, 

And singing there, and bringing there, 

Love's more than artless art. 

So never, in lands however far. 

Or seas that wash them romid, 

Shall I see wings along the sky 

But instantly the sound 

Of your voice shall come, 

And the sky, changing, 

Shall be the room we love. 

With its lamp-glow — and time-flow — 

And happy swallows ranging. 



34 



TRANSFUSION 

A SHOAL-LIGHT flashes East, 
And livid lightning West, 
The silvery dark night-sea between, 

On which we ride at rest, 
And gaze far, far away 
Into the fretless skies, 
World-sadness in our thought — but ah. 
Content within our eyes. 

The ship's bell strikes — the sound 

Floats shrouded to our ears. 
Then suddenly, as at a touch. 

The universe appears 
A Presence Infinite 

That penetrates our love 
And makes it one with night and sea 

And all the stars above. 
35 



IN A DARK HOUR 

YOU are not with me — only the moon, 
The sea and the gulls' cry, out of tune; 
The myriad cry of the gulls still strewn 
On the sands where the tide will enter soon. 

You are not with me, only the breath 
Of the wind — and then the wind's death. 
A shrouding silence then that saith, 
" Even as wind, love vanisheth." 

You are not with me — only fear. 
As old as earth's first frenzied bier 
That severed two whose hearts were near, 
And left one with all Life unclear. 



36 



THE OLD NEED 

TONIGHT I saw the new moon, while the 
vesper bells were ringing, 
A slender silver breath it seemed, swung on 

the April skies. 
Soft apple blossoms under it in white throngs 

were springing. 
And blossom-thoughts of you within my heart 
began to rise. 

I saw the moon, I heard the bells, I felt the 
silver rapture 

Of stars that soon would blossom on the pur- 
ple tree of night. 

But from a Universe in bloom I only sought 
to capture 

Soft-petalled words — but three — to tell 
again love's vernal might. 
37 



DOMINIONS 

DEATH is as strong as the sea is, 
But when I lift my eyes 
To yours I know there is born there 

A light to outlive the skies. 
Death is as wide as the sea is. 

Yet at your least love-call 
I know that death's vastity is 
Not all. 

Death is as dark as the tide is, 

But when I see you move 
I know that the highmost star there 

Is guided in its groove. 
Death is as dread as the tide is, 

But while your heart is in mine 
I '11 trust that all else beside is 
Divine. 

38 



SECRECIES 

WHAT is between my heart and the moon 
To you alone I tell, 
In words soft as the trembling tone 

That comes from the far buoy-bell. 
What is between my heart and the sea 

Was never told nor writ, 
Because, like this my love for you. 
Its strength seems infinite. 

What is between my heart and the stars 

You need but ask to learn. 
For all my clustered thought of you 

Like them with beauty burn. 
What is between my heart and the deeps 

Of death could be confessed 
Only when I have clasped you there 

Again unto my breast. 
39 



TWILIGHT CONTENT 

IS it the wind in trees or waters falling? 
Is it the canyon-shadows rushing down 
The ridgy slopes that seem so to be calling 
My heart in twilit tenderness to drown? 

Is it the canyon wren's diminuendo 
That slips down a soft scale of minor peace? 
Is it the spell of night's lone wide crescendo 
Of mountain rest upon me — is it these? 

Or but some sense of you I cannot measure? 
Some memory of a wind of love that blew 
Out of your heart to mine? Some darkling 

pleasure 
In the first shade of grief I shared with you? 

40 



TWILIGHT CONTENT 

I cannot tell. I only know how surely 
In you — and the world's beauty — I rejoice. 
The wren is still: gone to her nest demurely. 
The night has come — yet silence is your 
voice. 



41 



ON THE BEACH 

THE long coast curves and the cliffs rise 
up, 
Red and white and green; 
The surf slips in with a sucking din 

Of shingle-wash between. 
The light gulls float with crimson bills 

Set seaward — not one cries: 
And we are alone, alone with them, 
Under the aimless skies. 

The tide slips in, of the moon released, 

Its rhythm gives us rest, 
And in its pause there are hid sweet awes 

That sink into the breast 
With silent soothing — till the coast 

Is lost in mystic gloam. 
And till deep in my dreams I hear 

Your voice, that calls me home. 
42 



AT THE EBB-HOUR 

AS I hear, thro the midnight sighing, 
The low ebb-tide withdrawn, 
And gulls on the dark cliff crying 

For far discernless dawn. 
It seems that all life is lying 

Within your every breath, 
Yet I cannot believe in dying. 
Or death. 

As I hear, from the gray church tower, 

The bell's unfailing sound 
Peal forth hour after hour 

To night's lone reaches round. 
It seems as if Time's wan power 

Would sear all things apace — 
All, save in my heart one flower. 
Your face. 
43 



THE EDGE OF THE HILL 

IF we walked over the edge of the hill 
And on, should we reach the moon? 
Silver it lies in the twilit skies 

Just over trees that croon 
With the trembling breeze and softened pleas 

Of the whippoorwill's lone cry. 
If we walked over the edge of the hill 
And reached the moon, would the wefts of ill 
Fade there, from love, and die? 

If we walked over the edge of the hill 
And on, should we reach the stars? 

And God at the end, our final friend 
In all time's troublous wars? 

And then, at last, with the world far past. 
Should we be satisfied? 

44 



THE EDGE OF THE HILL 

Or long again for the edge of the hill? 
And love so frailly human still? 
And hopes that never abide? 



45 



MINGLINGS 

IT is the old, old vision — 
The moonlit sea — and you. 
I cannot make disseverance 

Between the two. 
For all the world's wide beauty 

To me you seem, 
All that I love in shadow 
Or glow or gleam. 

It is the old, old murmur, 

The sea's sound and your voice. 
God in his Bliss between them 

Could make no choice. 
For all the world's deep music 

In you I hear: 
Nor shall I ask death, ever. 

For aught more dear. 
46 



THE HEART'S QUESTION 

IS it such a little thing 
To find a wind-flower 
Twinkling in the wild-wood 

Hour after hour, 
Dancing to the wind's pipe 

With a happy nod? 
Is it such a little thing? 
I think it is God. 

Is it such a little thing 

To find the young moon 
Flitting thro the tree boughs 

In her silver shoon, 
Seeking for the wind-flower 

There along the sod? 
Is it such a little thing? 

I think it is God. 
47 



THE HEART'S QUESTION 

Is it such a little thing 

To find in your face 
Something of the wind-flower 

And young moon's grace? 
Something of the wild-wood, 

Ever faery-trod? 
Is it such a little thing? 

I think it is God. 



48 



ASSUAGEMENT 

HOW close tonight the whippoorwill 
Calls, as the stars come out; 
And then how like a far echo — shrill 

No more, hut a dream-shout. 
How softly there does the Infinite 

Lift up the silver moon, 
And then how silently He sets 
Our care-sick hearts in tune. 

How soothingly does the night-wind sigh, 

And ease the earth to sleep. 
How fugitive is the cricket's cry, 

But, oh, with life how deep. 
How vastly stretches the universe, 

How lone and how aloof, 
Until our hands touch — then it seems 

But love's star-builded roof. 
49 



FIRST AND LAST 

NIGHT has uttered a star, 
A first faint word 
Of her epic to follow. 
Night has uttered a star; 
It hangs in the dusk's high hollow. 
Night has uttered a star; 
As you, supernally dear to me. 
First uttered the word that brought my heart 
Starry infinity. 

Night has ended her lay, 
Her epic lay 
Of heavenly burning. 
Night has ended her lay. 
And the dawn wind is returning. 
Night has ended her lay; 
But the starry-rhythms of your love 
Thro all my being's breadth, I know. 
Can never cease to move. 
50 



